Monday, March 27, 2017

"Sometimes?" you say? Well, maybe more than just sometimes.
Be nice.
Anyway, nothing much new to report here at the Ponderosa. We did have our what has now become an annual dinner party wherein Travelling Companion recreates an Austrian dish called Tafelspitz.

I remember the first time she came home from a gathering with some of her Austrian work companions and told me they had had "boiled meat".
I was pretty sceptical.

"Gah! Boiled meat? What the hell?"

But we did venture out on more than one occasion to a particular restaurant in Vienna called Plachutta, and it's their recipe that she tries to replicate.

Pretty damned well I might add.

Anyway, it was good. Plus there was some deserts to die for.

But I digress.

I still find myself somewhat dumbfounded when a delivery arrives at our front door, or in this case the mail box, and it's so soon after I've ordered it, that I don't immediately realise what it is.

See, when a feller gets to a certain vintage, and if said feller wishes to be seen in public, it behooves said feller to be somewhat fastidious when it comes to the removal/trimming/what have you of ones random/extra/annoying nose/ear hairs.

Got that?

Like, I got 'em growing in places where no hair should be allowed. If only more would grow on my head.

And just last week, I broke my trusty trimmer, and there was no chance of putting it back together this time, as one of the small pieces went into the sink drain. And yes, I do have the skill set to take the trap apart, but that's a slippery slope. Emphasis on slippery.

I ordered a new one on the 24th. That was Friday. I even think it was Friday night, but my memory is dim. Today is Monday. Apparently things get shipped out on the weekend.

But hey, just the other night we were talking about all of us "old fogeys" (my term) still having land lines and such. The "kids" (they're mostly all middle aged by now) no longer have things like cable TV or such a thing as a land line. Everything is done on their cell phones.

Half the time I don't even know where my cell phone is, but I am getting a little better in that department after I lost the last one.

Don't feel bad, I didn't like it anyway. Good riddance.

Anyhoodle, a quick update on the bathroom situation.

It's coming along.

Travelling Companion snapped a pic of me putting in the last tile in the shower area, and I've since been muddling along with the rest of it.

I think it's starting to look pretty good, if I must say so myself.

I've been putting off doing the floor, as it involves installing a mat from Warmly Yours.
I mean, I just have to suck it up and get it done. Of course, it also involves being on my hands and knees so, ya..

Thursday, March 9, 2017

No damage here at the Ponderosa, and I'll be a little smug here and attribute that to what I'd like to think of as due diligence.

I mean, we've spent quite a few bucks over the years making sure that trees that were too close to the house or looking poorly were summarily dispatched. We had one that was right on the property line between the two houses at the back. I think that was the very first one to go, way back in 1992 not long after we moved here.

It so happened that I had to take a little road trip this morning, and couldn't help but notice that one of our neighbours was indeed pretty damned lucky that this tree didn't fall the other way.

This was a perfectly healthy tree, but I have a theory.

See, I'm really reluctant to water our lawn. I figure, it's grass, and if it gets a little brown along sometime in August say, it'll come back in due time. So my theory is, if you water your grass to the point that it'll stay green, the grass isn't the only thing getting the water, as any tree in the vicinity is going to siphon off as much water as it can get. The unfortunate result is, the roots of the tree don't need to go down any deeper than where it's going to find water. Then the wind comes up, and your tree takes a tumble.

Hopefully not on your house.

Trees are wonderful, but if you have them in a suburban setting, you'd best be keeping an eye on them, and make sure they're well rooted.

But hey, that's just a theory.

Just today T.C. and I were eyeing the two remaining ash trees in the side yard. We had one taken down last summer, and I know in my heart of hearts that the remaining two have "the bug" and will need to get removed at some point in the next several months.
Sad but true.

That'll just leave the one oak tree, which is seems to be fine.

Oh, and the other little thing that came to our attention as a result of the wind yesterday? Well, a transport driver was driving his unloaded tractor trailer across the Burlington Skyway (a bridge around these parts for anyone not familiar) and in spite of the signs saying, "High winds on Skyway", he figured he'd be fine, right up until the moment when the wind knocked over his trailer.
He came out of it unscathed, read about it here if you'd care to.

I'm not about to offer any opinions as to the "state of mind" of this individual. You can come to your own conclusions.

When another transport driver was briefly interviewed, he was of the opinion that getting blown over was pretty much what you could expect if travelling light over the bridge when there are high winds.

Anyhoodle.

That's today's missive. Trying to be more consistent in that department.

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

I guess I must have missed the memo concerning the smell of the waterproofing agent I'm using for the shower. It's something akin to the overwhelming smell you get just as you trowel out one of those monster nuggets from the bottom of the kitty litter pan. You know, reeking of ammonia?

Travelling Companion is out for the day, but I'm not so sure the smell will be gone by the time she gets back.

Erp.

And we don't have a cat.

Of course, I do vividly recall going into the other bathroom, where the kitty litter was kept (back in the cat days) and thinking, "Oh my gawd, somebody needs to clean that out!".

Of course, nine times out of ten "Somebody" was me.

Not one of my favourite things.

The stuff is called "Redguard", and there's a very good chance that I don't really need it, but there will not be any "do-overs" when it comes to this bathroom. Plus, I could see where there had been water issues in the past, and that was with a mortar bed and tiles. The chances of anything moving at this point are slim to none, but just the same.

Now, speaking of "things that move", this house has settled over the last fifty years or so, and one of the very last doors that needed sorting out has been the door to the very bathroom I'm working on.

In hindsight (it's a wonderful thing, isn't it?) I really should have sorted out this door a long, long time ago, but that would have meant doing exactly what I did, and that was taking off the trim, cutting the nails holding the hinge side jamb in place, and squaring up the frame.

Thus:

What would renovation be like without a reciprocating saw? Boggles the mind.

It doesn't *look* like a lot of work, but getting the frame and the top there to form some sort of right angle did seem to take me an awfully long time. You'll notice at the top there how there's considerably less on the left side as opposed to the right?
That's how much the house has moved.

Hopefully it's done.

I think so anyway.

That's not the door that will be there when I'm all finished. We have that door. It's sequestered in another room at the moment. You'll see it in due time.

I think the first coat of my smelly goop has dried, so I'll go back in, try not to gag, and put on the final coat.